TheTruth About Peaceful Eating: What No One Told Us-Part 1

What if all your struggles with food aren't actually about food at all? This eye-opening conversation launches a powerful three-part series called "The Truth About Peaceful Eating: What No One Told Us," exploring the complex relationship between faith, food, and freedom.

Hosts Heidi and Christina vulnerably share their decades-long battles with food obsession and body image, revealing how these struggles often mask deeper spiritual hungers. Through personal stories—from classroom candy binges to secret nighttime eating—they illuminate how food becomes a battlefield when we believe we're not enough, that God is disappointed in us, or that we must fix ourselves to be worthy of love. This conversation offers both compassion and hope for anyone trapped in cycles of shame and food obsession.

Ready to discover what you're really hungry for? Join us as we taste and see that the Lord is good in ways food could never satisfy.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Peaceful Eating Series
• 2:51 What If The Problem Isn't Food?
• 5:47 Food Standing In For Deeper Needs
• 12:06 God's Loving Gaze on Our Hearts
• 18:58 An Invitation to Deeper Grace
• 26:12 Freedom in Christ, Not in Food Plans

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hi and welcome to our podcast Revelation Within On the Go. I'm Heidi Bilesma-Epperson, one of your hosts and the owner and lead coach of the RevelationWithinorg ministry.

Speaker 2: 0:13

And I'm Christina Motley, your other host, also a Revelation Within coach and Heidi's partner in all things Revelation Within, and we are so happy to invite you to join us for this episode of Revelation Within on the go. Yay, yay, we're so glad you're here with us today.

Speaker 1: 0:39

Yes, so glad, so glad. So today we're starting something a little different. This is going to be a three part series called the Truth About Peaceful Eating what no One Told Us. I love that title and this episode is what if the problem isn't the food I don't know? I think that's a really good. What if?

Speaker 1: 1:01

Frankly, what I want to say right here at the top is this isn't intended to be a sales pitch. We don't want to pressure you or persuade you, but we are inviting you into a conversation and really it's a sacred, honest one about something that I don't know. I'm guessing many of us, I know I have struggled with this for years and years, and we are in the process of preparing a brand new class that we're excited about, called Transforming Grace Discovering Peaceful Eating. That will be live in June of 2025. Live in June of 2025. June of 2025. Live in June of 2025. We are so excited about this? Yes, definitely so. It just makes sense that it's time for us to invite a conversation about something that many of us have struggled with for years.

Speaker 2: 2:00

Yes, for years and really maybe even decades. I'm raising my hand for that one. If you are listening right now, chances are you've spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure out how to fix your eating, how to fix your body, how to fix you, and chances are, if you're anything like me, you have had a belief for a long time that if those things were fixed, everything else would fall into place too, and we would have a perfect existence. It's all about that. It's all about that. Is it on your mind?

Speaker 1: 2:39

all the time, yeah, and it might be something that nobody ever knows you're thinking about all the time. I remember feeling that way years and years and years ago. It was this thought that if only I could get this figured out, everything else in life would either not be as important or it would fall into place. Anyway, yeah, and. But in my case back then this was like in the 1990s. If I could date myself, oh yeah, I just always tried to fix the food. I tried to fix the food and move my body to excess, actually. But what if the problem isn't food? And what if it was never the food? Yeah right, christina and I have both seen this over and over and over again in our own lives and also in the lives of hundreds, if not thousands millions.

Speaker 2: 3:40

I don't know about millions, but definitely hundreds and several thousand for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:47

Of the women and some men, some brave men, that we've had the pleasure and privilege of walking alongside. We keep thinking that if we can just get the right plan, the right food, the right injection, the right discipline, then everything will finally fall into place.

Speaker 1: 4:06

But, that's not usually true and the food is rarely the real issue. And it's sad in some ways. It feels so sad because it's like if it was the food we could fix that and then everything would be perfect. But food is rarely the issue. In fact, it's really what food is standing in for in our lives.

Speaker 2: 4:28

Oh, that's good. Yeah, that's so true, it's the story.

Speaker 1: 4:31

We're telling ourselves that every time we feel like out of control, or we feel ashamed, or we're disappointed or lonely, or sad or happy or you name it Anything, what are we turning to food to do? And that, right there, let's zero in on that. It's what food is standing in for Right.

Speaker 2: 4:54

Oh, I really, I really like that. I don't know that we've used those words before. Yeah, I don't think. So what is food standing in for? Well, the truth is, food becomes a battlefield when we believe that we're not enough that's a big one, that's huge and when we believe that God is disappointed in us another big, huge one that so many of us can relate to, and when we believe that we have to fix ourselves to be worthy of love, to be valuable, that's another one that is so, so big.

Speaker 1: 5:28

I want to just zero in on those for a moment. This idea that we're not enough. It feels a little bit like it's the human condition, and we sometimes solve it supposedly by bolstering up our own ego or trying to surround ourselves with others who will do that. Or in the case of food and eating, I know for me I was really good at dieting and I would get praised and told how awesome I was doing if I lost weight. And you know, that's just not where I want to hang my hat, it's not where I want to get my sense of value.

Speaker 1: 6:05

The second one you mentioned, christina, was when we believe God is disappointed in us. You know what that is a lie. That is a lie. He's not disappointed in us, and I keep coming back to again and again Romans 5, 8, that God demonstrates his love for us in this While we were still well, pretty disappointing. If anybody could have been disappointed, then it would have been God. Then, with our behavior, while we were still sinners, christ died for us, but he wasn't disappointed. He had a plan. He went to work, he got busy, he gave his son for us.

Speaker 1: 6:45

So do I really believe that I have power enough to disappoint him when he has already provided a way so that the righteousness of God can be attributed to me. I mean, that's what scripture says he who knew no sin became sin on my behalf so that in him I might become, become the righteousness of God. Do I really believe my choices can thwart the greater plan of God? No, and then fix ourselves to be worthy of love. There are a lot of people I have heard over the course of the ministry years I've invested in this. I've heard people say and I probably said it too that I don't feel lovable when I am this broken over something that so many people I feel like in my mind are normal about. Normal, what is normal? It's a setting on your dryer about. But normal what is normal?

Speaker 2: 7:45

It's a setting on your dryer it is, it's a setting on your dryer. I love that. I think that for me, when I think about what I'm thinking about, which is what we talk about a lot, what am I thinking about all day long? And it's like when I think about that intentionally, I can see what's going on with me, what's going on with my heart, that I'm having these thoughts all the time and the thoughts that I used to have all the time, every spare minute. You know I'd go to work and I'd be busy and I'd work with the kids. You know I was teaching, or I'd be at home with my own kids, or or at the grocery store. You know I'm busy and doing things every spare minute. Where does your mind go? Where would my mind go? Every spare minute my mind would go to? I don't think I look good in this outfit.

Speaker 1: 9:40

Why did I wear this?

Speaker 2: 9:41

I feel like I should go home and change. Like I'm not comfortable in my own skin. Why did I eat that? Why did I eat so much? Oh, I wish I hadn't now, but actually I kind of want some more.

Speaker 2: 9:53

Like we're so tortured and that was me from about the age of 14, 15 until my mid forties. It's like I just struggled so much with this very constant thought life about what I was doing wrong food, eating, body image and nobody really knew that was. That was my little secret thought life and it was so discouraging, it was so sad really when you think about it. You know, here I am playing with my kids at the park. I remember this so well Every time I went to the park with the kids and we loved going to the park and they're playing and it's such a good thing.

Speaker 2: 10:35

And what am I doing? I'm comparing myself to the other moms. You know, am I the biggest one here? What about what I'm wearing? What about what they're wearing? You know, it's just oh, it was awful and I'm honestly, I'm embarrassed to say it. I mean, how many years were my thoughts full really of myself, my own shortcomings, my own shame? That's when we go to food and then, because we feel so much shame from going to food, we go to food again, and it's again, and again. It's that cycle.

Speaker 1: 11:12

Right, Right. Well, there's a verse that I love in 1 Samuel 16, verse 7. It says people look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Yes, you know. We've spent so much of our lives, like you were just saying, Christina focused on outward appearance, on how we look on how much food is on our plate, how much we weigh the number we see on the scale or the size in our pants, when all along, God's gaze, God's gaze, has been resting gently on our hearts. Yes, he looks at our heart.

Speaker 2: 11:53

Yeah, it's true, he sees what's going on. You know, behind the frantic behavior, what is food standing in for? God sees it, he knows it, he knows what we need. And let's just say it again God has never once been disappointed, not one time. That's not who he is. He has not been disappointed and he won't be I mean many seasons actually.

Speaker 1: 12:26

I was like again and again and again, when I was so frustrated with myself in one particular case, and actually repeatedly, I struggled so much with nighttime eating. I could do well all day, and then evening would hit and I would crumble and I kept saying what is my problem?

Speaker 2: 12:48

Now, that's not a very loving way of approaching it, but isn't that what we say to ourselves all the time? That is, that is yes.

Speaker 1: 12:55

What I never stopped to ask until much later is what am I actually hungry for? I wasn't hungry for food when I would turn to food.

Speaker 1: 13:04

Yes, I was hungry for peace, I was hungry for the Lord. I was hungry for peace, I was hungry for the Lord, I was hungry for rest, for grace, for all the things that he is, his presence would give me. And since we have been made by God with a God-shaped hole in our hearts, in our minds whatever you want to call it we will search for something to fill it. God wants us to search for him, and each time we sense that emptiness, he wants us to come to him. And initially we come to him for salvation and recognize his Lordship, his provision on the cross, but then, once we're in Christ, we want to keep re-upping, so to speak, turning to him again and again, because he alone is the source of peace, the source of true rest for our souls and for grace.

Speaker 2: 13:57

Yeah, oh, that's so, so true. And one of my favorite things that you say sometimes, heidi, is we long to be perfect because we're longing for heaven. That has been so kind of freeing and healing to me because I've struggled with that idea of I'll never get this, I'm not doing it right, you know, I'm not doing it well enough, that idea of perfectionism and being able to just let that go and say you know what? I'm longing for heaven. That's okay, that is fine, that makes sense. So I love, I love that, okay. So I'm going to remember a season as well and, yes, I've had many, many, many, many. So this is one where my husband and I we got married in California. I lived in California that's where I'm from and then we moved to Colorado to start a whole new life together when we had been married for a year. And I got this amazing job amazing in many ways challenging, different, new, exciting. It was a team teaching position for a double first grade classroom, 45 students.

Speaker 1: 15:06

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2: 15:08

And so this other teacher. Basically she and I were like married. I mean, you know I'm joking, but of course we spent so much time together and we were in the classroom all day and she was the Spanish part and I was the English part. It was also bilingual and the whole thing was about language. It was a fantastic, it was an experiment. It was an experiment and we were given a full-time aid.

Speaker 2: 15:34

Okay, so every day at the end of the day, I mean, we were so high energy. We're singing all day, we're just loving on these kids writing reading. We had, you know, so many things going on in the same room. You can just imagine. We had this huge classroom. I picture a three ring circus. It was so much fun but it was exhausting. Of course we had the best time. I mean, I look back with so much fun this over those years. But this is what we did every day. We kind of had this thing, this routine. The kids would walk out the door, we'd hug them all, wave goodbye, see you tomorrow, and then that my team teacher and I would lay down on the floor. No, but seriously, we would lay down on the floor and kind of just, you know, decompress that way and kind of laugh about how tired we were. And then we would go to our desks, which were together like in an L shape, and we would start planning and talking about the next day with eating and we would pull out food.

Speaker 1: 16:44

Now, I never heard this story before.

Speaker 2: 16:47

Yeah, well, that's why I thought I better come up with some new, a new story here. Yeah, and so, um, we pulled out candy, we pulled out chips and homemade salsa, we, we pulled out all kinds of it. She was an amazing cook, so she always had something baked goods. I usually just brought the stuff that you can buy at the store, but it was our normal routine that we pulled out all this food and sat there for one to two hours planning, lesson planning and eating. I'm not kidding, and again, keeping it real here, it's kind of embarrassing to admit this and, to be honest, in the world of teaching that is not unusual.

Speaker 1: 17:35

Yeah, yeah, I was a teacher too, I know.

Speaker 2: 17:38

Yeah, and the lounge is full of so much food at all times and people are eating a lot. There's a lot of a lot of stress, super high energy with being a teacher and there's a lot of a lot of people who struggled with overeating in that profession. It just is. And so, yeah, I mean we did that and no wonder I was gaining weight all the time, all the time. It's no wonder when I look back and my teen teacher, who I absolutely adored she was one of my best friends at the time. Of course you know she struggled with the same thing, and so that is one where I can look back. We taught together for four years in this double classroom before I got pregnant with my first and then I ended up becoming a part-time interventionist.

Speaker 2: 18:29

But that was a long time to have a pattern like that. We were deeply entrenched in it. It didn't give you true soul rest either.

Speaker 2: 18:39

No, not at all. It didn't give us at all what we wanted. What it gave us was full bellies. That didn't feel good. What it gave, what probably made us feel physically worse? Actually, we probably felt more lethargic as we ate that food and by the time we got home we were just ready to lay on the couch for the rest of the evening. So let's go to Matthew 11, 28, which so many of us know. Come to me. Who's talking here?

Speaker 1: 19:11

It's.

Speaker 2: 19:12

Jesus, it's Jesus. And he's looking right at me. He's looking right at me. He's looking right at you with love in his eyes, like a best friend. He's looking at you laying there on the floor with your girlfriend. He's looking at me laying on the floor. He's looking at me knowing that I have all this food in my drawers, ready to pull out in the desk. And he's saying Christina, come to me, you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Yay, he didn't say. And he wouldn't say come to me when you finally got your eating under control, or when the number on the scale says X, y, z, or when your pants size is this, then come to me and I'll give you rest. No, he says come right now.

Speaker 2: 20:10

And when I think back to that time, you know we were working in a school of poverty it was like 90% poverty and it was migrant workers, kids working in the fields and their parents were working in the fields and those families had lots of needs and the kids had lots of needs, lots of needs, academic and emotional needs, physical needs. We were exhausted, we were burdened for our students and families. We love them, but where this says all who are weary and burdened. I'm thinking, yes, we were, we were and obviously we are now, for many reasons. God understands, he knows that when our hearts are heavy, we go for relief, we go for something that will help, and when we're tired, for something that will help. And when we're tired, not just tired, but weary. Weary is like tired of tired, it's like a deeper version of tired, I think. And God says, jesus says, come right now I have all you need.

Speaker 1: 21:19

I love that and really know, really, when we have quote failed in our efforts, you know whether it is to offer God this aspect of our lives the food, eating and body image aspect of our lives, or some other failure of some kind. He's still saying come to me. He is still saying, and come to me, come to me. So we want to offer an invitation to the listeners today. Just a general question to kind of carry with you but consider this what if your eating struggles aren't evidence of failure of any kind, but an invitation, like Jesus whispers in Matthew 11, 28,?

Speaker 1: 22:05

an invitation into deeper grace.

Speaker 2: 22:09

Oh, I love that. Oh, I love that. That feels so much better when you said that first part, heidi, and I thought, failure, oh, oh, failure, failure. And then you said, but an invitation into deeper grace, oh, I'll take that one. Okay, I'm going to throw another. What if out there? What if, instead of trying harder, we start listening more closely to what our hearts are really hungry for? That feels good, doesn't it? That's another one that it's like okay, I'll take that one. That sounds hopeful to me.

Speaker 1: 22:52

You know, and it made me think of all of those times, both in the past and not so distant past, like last night, when I might think, okay, what am I hungry for? And I am already planning what food I'm going to eat, whether I'm hungry or not. It's not true physical hunger, it's what sounds good, what sounds tasty, what sounds like fun.

Speaker 2: 23:14

What's going to be an upgrade, because I'm needing an upgrade right now?

Speaker 1: 23:18

Yeah, because I'm tired of whatever's going on and I want to feel happy, and so either I numb out with food or I upgrade with food or whatever. But really you know what, if I were to turn that into? What am I really hungry for? What is my soul hungry for? What is the emptiness that's in there that I want to throw food at? Because really physical food will only satisfy physical hunger. Anything else I throw physical food at is still going to be there.

Speaker 2: 23:53

Well, and it's going to make it feel worse, is the thing? You feel worse after you're eating for the wrong reasons?

Speaker 1: 24:00

You just feel worse.

Speaker 1: 24:02

Romans 8.1 is one of my favorite verses, of course, and I quote it often. It says there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. What would it look like? I mean, what if here's another? What if? Yes, I love those. What ifs? What if it's true? Not just when I have my Sunday best on or when I'm behaving myself, but when I'm sneaking into the kitchen and hoping nobody's going to notice that I'm going back for the second dish of ice cream, or whatever it might be? What would it look like to believe that there is no condemnation for me because I'm in Christ? Yes, yes, not just in church, but also at the kitchen table?

Speaker 2: 24:47

Well, I was thinking about the kitchen at church, because that's what I used to do. I used to go in the kitchen at church and find the leftovers in there usually like ice cream or something.

Speaker 1: 25:01

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 25:02

So that's what I connected when you said that the kitchen at the church. What's in the cupboards at church? Oh, my. God.

Speaker 2: 25:11

No I love that question. It's like what would it feel like? What would my day look like, what would my thoughts look like in my mind if I really believe that there's no condemnation in Christ at all? It's just no, it's not there. Oh, I love that, so hopeful, Okay. So this is exciting. Next time we're going to talk about something that has completely changed our lives, Heidi and I, and our journey with food, eating, body image, the whole shebang. And that is the practice of mind renewal.

Speaker 2: 25:50

Are you surprised Of the mind. I know I'm saying it like it's brand new. Well, that's the cool thing about mind renewals it can be brand new every time. It's brand new every time, I know. But if you've been with us even for 10 minutes, you'll know that this is our thing. Oh my gosh, it's just, it's life changing, it's transformative. So we want to get into. How do we actually change what's driving our eating patterns, those destructive patterns that you cannot seem to get out of? You know, you're just feeling so stuck in that, and Heidi and I both know how that feels. And then, how do we shift the beliefs underneath the behavior? Because that's why we're behaving a certain way. We're believing something there. And again, what's in my thoughts, what's going on in my thought life all day long?

Speaker 2: 26:47

Let's get into some of that.

Speaker 1: 26:50

Yeah, we will. It's really not about willpower or self-discipline or all of those things that we've been told it's about or told ourselves I don't have any self-discipline, or I don't this, or I am that, or what is wrong with me. What it is about is truth, and we can't wait to share more of that with you, of course, in part two. We'll get there next time around.

Speaker 2: 27:14

Yes, okay. So let's end today with Psalm 34, 8. I love this verse. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. So we'll leave you with this your freedom isn't in a plan, it's in a person. Oh, it's Christ, it's Christ.

Speaker 1: 27:38

Yay, more coming to you soon. Yay, more coming soon.

Speaker 2: 27:41

Thanks for being here. We hope that you'll join us for part two, our next episode of revelation within